Friday, November 16, 2018
Dr. Cornel Sultan
Virginia Tech
11:00 am - 12:00pm
SEH, 2000
Abstract
This talk explores the feasibility of Model Predictive Control (MPC) in ship landing operations in realistic scenarios. This means that control design and evaluation use models which are of sufficiently high fidelity to capture essential helicopter dynamics, ship dynamics, and the helicopter-ship aerodynamic interactions due to the airwake. Also practical landing scenarios and decisions based on the sea state and in the presence of landing and operational constraints dictated by established standards are considered. Case-studies in which the model used in MPC design is updated according to the current helicopter-ship system state and in which this model is not updated are presented. Nonlinear models for the helicopter-ship system are used to evaluate the MPC performance. The influence of the airwake on the MPC performance is evaluated. Limitations and extensions of the existing design methods which are currently researched are also discussed.
Biography
Cornel Sultan holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Purdue University and is currently an Associate Professor in the Aerospace and Ocean Engineering Department at Virginia Tech. He has been previously affiliated with a start-up company, Tensegra Inc. (1999-2001), Harvard Medical School (2001-2003), Scientific Systems (2001-2004), and United Technologies Research Center (2004-2007). His current research interests are in rotorcraft design and control, tensegrity and membranes, energy harvesting systems, and coordinated control.